How to proceed to the next scene. Which is why I'm taking so long to finish this damn novel (；´∀｀)

As a composer and musician, I'd have to say that I'm very self-conscious of how repetitive my music might sound. I tend to have very thematic phases of writing songs, so like.. you can tell when stuff was made in a bunch. I often worry about it all feeling the same.

As a writer, I worry about that "new writer" feel bleeding through. I mean.. fair enough, right? I am new to writing stuff in novel format. The closest thing I had to that was writing lyrics and poetry before, but this is a different beast altogether. I really shouldn't worry about it because of course, I shouldn't expect it to come out perfect immediately. Can't help it though~

The art but mostly I try to focus on the story. Whether or not it's enjoyable or if I like the topic that I'm writing about.

Sometimes I get a little self-consious and I delete everything. That's when the writer's block comes in but after I take a deep breath and reflect the story starts rolling in.

I'm the type of person that doesn't think anything through at all, when it comes to the art. If I forgot to shade like half-a-panel, I'll somehow manage to convince myself that nobody'l notice it. With the writing however, I'll think of details that are never going to be introduced into the story, I know everything about my characters;from their favourite colour to that birth mark by their stomach that I'm never going to draw anyway. (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻

So yea, the writing.

As the writer in this partnership, it's my job to write a script the hubby can draw. I worry about did I make certain things clear, how many panels is something, what words do I need them to say, am I accidentally going against lore and world building.....

So in my mind I tend to rewrite at least 15 times before ever getting it typed. Then, because he and I have known each other since age 12, I sometimes forget our brains aren't the same and have to rewrite something so he gets it better without changing what I mean.

So basicly, does the script make since and work considering we normally only update once a week.

My art. In a way I kind of feel like an imposter because I'm not good at backgrounds and don't really ink and shade like most others do. I try to ignore the feeling though and tell myself this is a learning experience.

The plot is something I overthink the most. If character's actions make sense, how to go from one scene to another and stuff like that.

The art. Mostly on very worried about having a crooked lines etc and if my headings were out of the shading area or lack of it. And also the plot. So basically everything.

For me it's writing. I think the basic issue is that I can't usually tell definitively whether something I've written is good or not. When I draw something, I can just look at it and pretty much immediately see whether there are mistakes and what exactly they are. When I write something, I almost always reach a point where I think something's bad, edit it, and then genuinely can't tell whether it was better before or after I changed it. Then I'm just messing with stuff without even knowing if I'm making any progress.

Maybe the solution is to be able to know specifically why something is good or not. You can't improve what you can't perceive to begin with.

I think I just learned something from typing all this out

Story/Plot is by far my biggest insecurity/overthink fodder. My writing skills aren't nearly as developed as my drawing skills, so I'm always worrying about if a story's too generic, if I'm telling it poorly, and especially finding myself writing plot holes/leaps in logic somewhat frequently and stressing over how badly said instances are ruining the overall story. Not that bad, probably, but I still worry xD

The writing, and the way dialogue is phrased. I often worry that dialogue doesn't feel natural, and sometimes I rewrite the same thing for a very long time until it feels right. There's also a couple of plot holes in my story that need to be taken care of.

Sometimes I overthink about the scenes I made like, in the last episode one of the characters forgot to pick the key of another character's house, so they had to pick from the character's pocket

Then I overthinked again for overthinking if it was too stupid to add that, even thought I've never showed the character having the key of the another character's house lmao, and started thinking "Will readers notice that if I don't show this scene?" aaaaaa
Anyway, the lasts episodes from the arc I'm working on is too complex and I have to be extra careful to not add something not related to the story itself, otherwise it will influenced the ending of the series. The next episode is the last episode before the last arc too omg

tbh all my shading layers, i need to change how i color my pages because the way i do shading layers makes it hard to do dramatic/special lighting but i feel like i cant change it at this point.

I harp on the dumbest details- whether they are realistic or not. Like I picked some jobs for my characters' parents. And then I harp on whether or not those jobs make sense with their presented wealth. SO for example the main girl in my story has a mom who is a well off lawyer, and a dad who is a principle software developer... I then harp on things like- estimating their yearly salary, then assuming the type of house they would have in the type of neighborhood they'd have, and if they are making enough for that? What would be their take home income after taxes and mortage... I know the comic is set int he Seattle area, what is the average cost of living given the type of car, type of house, type of lifestyle they have, healthcare costs, etc etc for a 4 person family... it GOES ON AND ON AND ON. I have a problem. Yes I did this for all my characters and their families. And near none of this information is presented in the story.

AAAAAaaaaah, DIALOGUE. It's one of those things where your goal is to make it as natural as possible, so if you keep working at it for a long time, it'll start sounding more and more artificial. My tip is to listen to videos or observe people when they talk. Just find a Youtube video and listen to people have conversations.

Dialogue and how to include foreshadowing without being too obvious.

Also I struggle how to explain stuff without making it an info dump. I take the advice of a post I saw once which said to act like your readers are already familiar with the world and characters to avoid info dumping. Of course the post was about fanfic but it was mentioned cuz since it’s fanfic you can skip introducing the characters in great detail.

Like you don’t even learn the last names of my characters until chapter 3. Honestly you don’t even know the name of the cat familiar (or even that he is a familiar) until later. I think I’m working that into chapter 4.

As far as dialogue goes I suppose I have the benefit of being born and raised in Texas and I’ve just decided that my stories are all set in Texas unless otherwise stated... so I’ve got a lot of slang I can utilize.

Anyway so it’s mostly the writing part I struggle with. The art, I usually struggle with props or detailed rooms or things like trains / cars / etc. Which sucks. Also perspective, particularly in the case of bedrooms. Mostly cuz I draw traditionally so I can’t zoom in to get all the details and still get the perspective right. But I try to figure it out somehow.

like...everything but spelling

sigh

Is this eyebrow perfectly aligned?

Definitely the writing, but mostly with like... the inconsequential details, haha. Is this piece of dialogue too out of character? Does this dialogue convey something I don't want to convey? Is this real-world detail actually factually correct?? Maybe I should look it up for the 12th time...

I worry that the idea I'm trying to express will not be understood. Or even worse: misunderstood.

Composition- of individual panels, my pages, and how the pages need to fit within a certain scheme of what I'm doing.

Every. Single. Time. Ill have a scene written for a story and then i look at it like "this makes no sense, no one would get this but me" So then i revise several times until it is so dumbed down that it would probably insult readers intelligence so I bump it up a few notches as continue in a self destructive cycle.

If people can overlook a whole DAMN OUTFIT SWITCHING COLOR IN THE MIDDLE OF A SCENE then I don't think you should worry so much about a spot, but the things I overthink the most in art is the quality of the image and if my art is ugly and the panel placement. As for the writing I always fear someone won't interpret it the way I intend the story to be interpreted and that there might be unfortunate implications.

plotholess,, for sure
i always end up thinking of "but what if" scenarios no one else really cares about (or ever, ever asks about)
which can sometimes honestly trip me over and often delays my work

but in terms of art im the exact opposite, very straightforward pen-to-page no-thinking process, so its interesting seeing how many people get tripped over that!

There's no plot holes! Just lore I can't fit in. There are often comments where people are like "THIS MAKES NO SENSE!" and I'm all "BUT I CAN'T EXPLAIN WITHOUT SPOILERS!" and I try to have lore in my patreon that explains some of it without too many spoilers.... but people are paying for those! So then people get mad and that stresses me out...

I say this while I write lore for brain cases in my comic....

aww that sucks ;;;
i normally dont even work with fantasy elements so i can only imagine how much working on a full on fantasy world would be terrifying
maybe if u could be like,, "the resolution to that turns up in X pages !"

or try and establish rules before using a system?
i.e. if the characters have a 'mana' type magic system where their magic slowly runs out and they have to regain it via food/rest, you can show an introduction scene where someone's run out of mana and gets hurt in battle due to it.
obviously whatever works for your comic might be more difficult, but you could also hold off on scenes until you've explained how they work?

1. Is this scene/ plot point plausible? Does it comes out too unnatural, coincidental, or staged?
2. Am I driving this story downhill into a wrong direction? Am I unwittingly commiting writing mistakes? Introducing too many characters? Inconsistency? Plot holes? Poor world building?
3. Are my characters plus their interaction and motive realistic and human enough? Are they layered enough (though I left some underdeveloped for purposes) Do their dialogues sound forced? Are their voice unique enough?
4. Am I making mistake in wording and vocabularies? Will people make fun of my English and my little International knowledge?
5. Would my readers like it? Would people actually care about it? Would it make a difference if I post it? Will they disappointed with it?
6. Can I actually write? Do my subscribers stay because they feel sorry for me? Should I quit?

TL;DR a lot that it sometimes drives me crazy and unproductive.

Also if any of my subscriber or those who have read my story stumbled upon this reply, I'd appreciate it if you answered point 1--3 honestly
I just want an opinion about it, because readers usually can see in different perspective writers can't.

There are two things I overthink about the story of my comic and how I am going to execute it. I think about whether certain details in the plot make sense or whether or not it will portray the feeling I want for that particular scene. I even think far into a comic's story evening thinking on how to panel scenes in later chapters to convey a certain emotion. Well, the good news is when I do eventually get to that scene I know what direction to go.